Many vehicles with manual transmission have gears in a main drive box with synchronizers and/or splitters in an auxiliary drive box. As is known in the art, most driving is conducted using gears in the main drive box, with a higher gear range, a low gear range, and/or an extra-low mode determined by the state of the auxiliary drive box. The extra-low gear is used to drive in conditions requiring high torque or low speed. In all cases, shifting between forward and reverse directions is performed in the main drive box, even if the vehicle is operating with the extra-low gear in the auxiliary drive box.
To operate the extra-low range gear, the driver can engage a splitter, operating the transmission in a split mode. However, if the driver wishes to go from forward to reverse while operating in the extra-low range gear, the transmission will naturally disengage the splitter and shift from forward to reverse. The driver would then re-engage the splitter to resume driving in the extra-low gear. This splitter cycling tends to cause premature wear of the splitter because splitters are not designed to withstand constant use. Although it is possible to make splitters more robust, doing so would increase the cost of manual transmissions due to the additional durability testing that would be required for such a modification.
There is a desire for a system and method that prevents excessive cycling of the splitter during shifting without requiring modification of the splitter itself.